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Originally Posted by JackDog
Well, I've officially given up on my computer. I can't even get it to turn on now, it just restarts itself before it gets to the log-in screen whether I use Safe Mode, Regular, or Last Known Good Configuration. Looking at my current options, I can either try to get my virus problem fixed, replace the hard-drive, or get a new computer...which would be the best way to go?
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I'd get a new computer, probably.
Try one last thing, though. Go
here and download and burn one of those distributions to CD. (Someone else can prolly tell you which is best for these purposes--is Ultimate Boot CD any good?)
See if your system will boot with that, and run some diagnostics. If you're not having a hardware problem, you may just need to reinstall Windows.
If that is the case, sometimes, machines with Windows installed have the rescue disk on a separate, hidden partition on the computer. If you don't have the install/rescue disks, they may be there.
But first just see if it will boot, and see what the diagnostics say.
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I'm guessing that all three are gonna be roughly the same price, but I don't know much about replacing a hard-drive. I'm guessing that I'd have to buy another copy of Windows, right? How much would that be? About $200 for the hard-drive and another $200 or so for Windows?
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The price of depends on the size/manufacturer of the HD, but I think Windows licenses are tied to the motherboard, not the HD. You should not have to buy a new license just to swap out your HD.
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Or are there free operating systems out there to download? I know that changing OS's would require a little bit of learning, but does Linux (for example) have a GUI like a Mac or PC? Or, would I be better off just getting a new computer?
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There are free OSes that have very nice GUIs, nicer than Windows, IMO. But you do at some point have to learn new commands, new tools, things like that. Do you want to do that? And most computer games are only available for Windows, if I'm not mistaken. (I don't play the games, so I could be wrong.)
What do you use your computer for, mostly?
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(right now I've got a 3 year old 512mb, PIII, Sony VAIO computer)
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Frankly, I wouldn't bother with that one unless you can get it back up pretty painlessly.
You can get a better, faster system than that for $300-odd dollars, probably, not counting the monitor. (That's a laptop, right? So you'd still need a monitor.)